Wednesday shortly after I got home from work there was a knock at my door. The only folks who knock on a regular basis are the Jehova’s Witnesses or other brands of jesus freaks who show up now and then, so I approached the door with some trepidation. On the other side of the glass stood a middle-aged woman with a government badge hung around her neck. I had one of those ‘oh shit!’ moments as I tried to parse her credentials – was it the feds, on my ass because of the server break in a couple of months ago where hackers managed to get at my mp3 collection? The fact that I routinely download tv shows and other media off the net, and somehow they got onto me?

In the end it turned out to be someone from the US Census Bureau, and they were visiting me on behalf of the US Commerce Department. apparently, similar to say the Nielsen’s, the Commerce Department surveys US households on a regular basis. My address got picked out of the proverbial hat and from now on they will be surveying me once a month. The data folks like me provide is used to analyze the state of the US Economy. So the next time you hear one of those news lead-ins on the evening news ‘according to Department of Commerce statistics, 24% of Americans now….’ you can think of me.